


idle chatter

by moorehawke



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Dungeon chitchat, Gen, Viren's an Asshole, it's just straight-up angst, lil bit of angst, ok upon reception of reviews, you know how it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 06:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16529258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moorehawke/pseuds/moorehawke
Summary: Viren had given specific orders that he be told nothing about the mission he was supposed to lead, and the standing guard was stationed outside the heavy oak door at the top of the stairs above him, so Gren spent his days with no-one to talk to.Except the elf.No. No way.





	idle chatter

 

The elf in the other room was going to cut off his ears when he got free.

 

That’s what Gren’s grandmother always used to say; _elves are jealous of how humans look. They’ll take your ears to make you ugly._ With fairytales like that, Gren had always pictured elves as gnarled, horrifying beings, with rough, mottled skin and jagged teeth. The elves he’d seen since the king’s death had looked nothing like that, but the image - and the story - couldn’t quite shake themselves from his head.

 

He’d already been down here three days, with no news from outside. Twice a day, meals were brought down, and he was uncuffed to eat under the watch of two guards. These weren’t any of the soldiers he knew, and he wondered where Amaya’s troops had ended up. Had they questioned his disappearance? Viren had given specific orders that he be told nothing about the mission he was supposed to lead, and the standing guard was stationed outside the heavy oak door at the top of the stairs above him, so Gren spent his days with no-one to talk to.

 

Except the elf.

 

No. _No way._

 

* * *

 

There was a single window at the very top of the vaulted ceiling that let in light from the outside world. During sunlight hours, this was enough to see by, and Gren spent his hours staring at whichever of the five walls on offer to him looked most interesting that day. But at night, the light levels went down to almost nothing. Viren clearly wasn’t interested in wasting pitch on prisoners, so the torch-brackets remained unlit. It was on the fourth night of absently watching the moon trace a single rectangle of grey across the cobblestones that Gren heard humming. The echoes that threw themselves from flagstone to flagstone made it hard to tell the source, but that didn’t matter. The elf was the only other prisoner in here anyway. King Harrow hadn’t really been one for long-term sentences.

 

The humming was strange, almost eerie. A trained musician would have said it was in a non-traditional mode, or that the elf was singing just a tiny fraction higher than each of the notes Katolis bards used, but all Gren could conclude was that it sounded off. Beautiful, but alien. He got the feeling that had the elf known he was awake, he wouldn’t be singing it. That felt like at invasion of privacy, and Gren coughed quietly, trying to make it sound like he was just waking up. The music cut off instantly.

 

* * *

 

In the daylight, if Gren _really_ strained his arms, he could lean enough to the left to make out the elf’s hand. It was pale, and getting skinnier by the day. Viren came down to visit him often, barely giving Gren a cursory glance as he passed each morning. Their conversations were short: the elf never said more than the bare minimum. Sometimes Viren used threats, other times bribes; Gren had to admit, the fruit might have made him cave, had he been in the same position.

 

When Viren left on the first day, the elf tried to break free. Gren could hear the percussive clangs as he smashed the collars around his wrists into the chains that bound him. He stayed quiet. The metalwork on the bindings was some of the finest in Katolis, made from the same near-unbreakable alloy as their generals’ swords. After an hour or so, the elf gave up with a grunt of frustration. The next day, though, when Viren left, he did the same again.

 

By the third day, the lack of food or drink was starting to take its toll. The clanging became quieter, less determined, and stopped sooner. By the seventh, the elf didn’t even try.

 

That was the day Gren decided to talk to him.

 

What did he have to lose, anyway? If he pissed the elf off, he might kill him, but even if he didn’t, he’d still probably be killed if the elf broke free. He was right by the stairs and chained to a wall, it wasn’t like he’d be hard to miss.

 

“Uh, hello?” he said hesitantly. The few fingers Gren could see beyond the edge of the stone doorway clenched into a fist, but he didn’t let that scare him. This wasn’t just for the elf, it was for him. He hadn’t had a conversation in over a week now, and he was starting to go a bit crazy. “Are you awake?” He tried again.

 

“Yes.” Came a bitten-off answer.

 

“I’m Gren.” Gren said. “What’s your name?” _Do elves even have names?_

 

A dismissive huff echoed on the stones. “What do I care of your name, human?”

 

“No, sorry, I just- I figured maybe you’d want someone other than Viren to talk to, is all.”

 

“The chatter of one dragon-killer is still preferable to two.”

 

“I didn’t kill any dragons.” Gren pointed out.

 

“Perhaps not, but you stood by your king as he did. If not a murderer, a warmonger.”

 

Gren didn’t really have an answer to that.

 

 

* * *

 

“That arm doesn’t look to be in very good shape.” Gren heard Viren saying on the morning of the ninth day. “I’m glad.” He repressed a shudder at his cold tone. The elf said nothing, and Viren left. On his way out, he smirked at Gren, who glared in response. The elf moved, chain links clinking together, and then grunted in pain.

 

* * *

 

Gren took to checking in with the elf, perhaps more for his own sanity than out of genuine curiosity. He never received more than an irritated grunt or sharp insult in response, but knowing the only other person in the room wasn’t dead helped to pass the time somewhat. He also thought he might be learning a little bit about elf culture, at least as far as insults went. He didn’t think he’d ever been called “roof-builder” with such disdain before.

 

 

* * *

 

When he wasn’t tugging on his chains or giving Viren cryptic, venomous answers, the elf was almost always silent. Gren wasn’t sure if this silence was down to a lack of movement or some sort of assassin’s skill, but most days he couldn’t even tell if he was asleep or awake.

 

Which was why this was so strange.

 

It was about 2am, or so Gren would guess by the moonlight, and the elf’s breathing - usually imperceptible - was growing panicked. It echoed in the small space and rebounded, amplifying the sound of his hyperventilation. Gren listened to it grow louder and louder until suddenly the elf jolted awake with a shout, throwing himself against his chains.

 

“Rayla!” he yelled. He was still breathing heavily, but that quickly stopped as he seemed to realise where he was. A rustle of clothing and the clink of chains told Gren he’d settled back against the wall.

 

Gren was foolish, and curious.

 

“Who’s Rayla?” He asked. The reply came as a snarl that only formed words after a second or two.

 

“The _youngest_ of our company. A _child_ that your people killed.”

 

Gren frowned. “She doesn’t have purple streaks under her eyes, does she?” He asked.

 

“Why, were you there when they threw her body into the ocean?”

 

“No! I-” Gren was thinking hard, trying to remember every detail of the elf girl from the winter lodge. “I think I saw her.”

 

There was a pause before the elf replied, and this time the hard edge to his voice was gone. “What?” he almost whispered.

 

“We saw her at the Banther Lodge. She was an amazing fighter.” It felt strange to talk about an enemy of the kingdom like this, but Gren found himself empathising with the elf. The girl didn’t look much older than Callum; a child, and one that the elf had obviously felt responsible for.

 

“She’s…” The elf didn’t seem able to finish the sentence.

 

“Yeah, she’s alive. She took the princes, too.” And the bitterness came rushing back at that. “Two more _children._ They’re probably dead by now.”

 

The dungeon lapsed back into silence for a moment. Gren felt furious at himself for even _considering_ that one of these assassins could be worthy of help. If even elven children were killers, why was he talking to a full-grown murderer?

 

“No.”

 

Gren looked up. “Huh?”

 

“They’re not dead. There’s a band around my arm that binds me to my mission. It will only fall off when Prince Ezran has been killed.”

 

“And it’s-”

 

“Currently cutting off the circulation to my hand. She hasn’t killed them. Rayla’s too gentle-hearted for that.”

 

Gren let out a breath that turned into a laugh. “Oh, thank _god.”_ He said. Those boys were like sons to Amaya, to know they were safe was like having a two-tonne weight lifted off his chest. “Thank you.” He said earnestly. He lifted his gaze to look at the patch of bright sun illuminating the wall above him. The princes were _alive._ Gren had never been religious, but he found himself wishing he knew one of the cathedral prayers, if only to speak it into the air.

 

“Runaan.”

 

“What?”

 

“My name.” Came the elf’s reluctant voice. “It’s Runaan.”

 

Gren’s face split into a grin. “Nice to meet you, Runaan.”

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days, Runaan started to speak more to Gren. His conversations with Viren didn’t change - _“I am already dead,”_ he repeated for the fifth time that morning, and Gren winced as the sound of a slap rebounded of the flagstones - but when Viren left the dungeon, Gren found that he could ask questions and that they would be answered.

 

“Why do you speak Katol?” He asked on the first day of this. “I thought Xadians had their own languages.”

 

“I don’t speak Katol. One of our mages gave us the gift of Allspeak before we left. I’m speaking my mother tongue, and you’re just _hearing_ Katol.”

 

“Moonshadow assassins never negotiate. Why do you need Allspeak?”

 

“Reconnaissance, mostly. Or did you think we had just sauntered into the castle with no plan?”

 

* * *

 

 

 _“Please_ stop singing.” Runaan’s voice broke through Gren’s daydreaming midway through the twelfth morning. Gren stopped abruptly.

 

“Sorry,” he said.

 

“It was pleasant the first time, not so on the fifth. What was that, anyway?”

 

“It’s an old trading song my mum taught me. She was a spice runner on the Southern Ocean before she came to the city. All the traders sing it, but even they don't know what it means. She used to say it was passed on from the sea itself.”

 

“It sounded like a sun-elf tune.”

 

Gren cocked his head. “Sun-elves sing sea shanties?”

 

“Usually they prefer to sing with harmonies, but yes, it seems they do.”

 

“Huh.” Gren said. “Weird.”

 

* * *

 

On the thirteenth day, Runaan was sluggish and tired. His responses to Gren were slow, his voice soft. “Are you okay?” Gren asked.

 

“New moon. Tired.” Came the reply.

 

“Oh,” Gren said, understanding. “You guys follow the moon’s phase, right? So the new moon would be like a low point. God, that must be so weird, having a cycle like that. Do you guys plan your military campaigns around it or-”

 

It was at this point that Viren opened the door, and Gren quickly fell silent. Behind him were two soldiers, carrying a broad but thin cloaked object down the steep stairs. Gren assumed it was a mirror, or perhaps a painting.

 

Their conversation was short this time, and punctuated by the clink of what sounded like a coin on the floor of the dungeon. “You’re a monster,” Gren heard Runaan say, and it was with more spite than he’d ever heard from the elf before.

 

“No, I’m a pragmatist.” Viren replied smugly, and strode back out and up the stairs.

 

“What was that?” Gren asked once he was gone. “What did he do?” But all Runaan gave him was a defeated silence.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, at nine o’clock, Viren returned to the dungeon. Gren shrank back against the wall in horror at the screams that emanated from Runaan’s cell, but once it was over, Viren strolled back out as if without care. His eyes were a deep, glowing purple, and there were dark streaks like broken veins crawling across his face. In his hand was a gold coin, and as it glinted in the light Gren was sure he saw the outline of a pair of eyes look back at him. Then Viren was past him, moving up the stairs and out the door. The heavy oak thudded shut behind him.

 

“Runaan?” Gren called. Whatever he’d seen, he didn’t want it to be what he thought. _Please still be there._ “Runaan?”

 

The dungeon was silent.


End file.
